When Did Women Get the Right to Vote in the UK?

Women in the UK got the right to vote in parliamentary elections in two steps. The Representation of the People Act 1918, which received royal assent on 6 February 1918, gave the vote to women over 30 who met a property qualification. All women aged 21 and over won the vote on the same terms as men ten years later, under the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928, which received royal assent on 2 July 1928.

So the answer to "what year did women get the right to vote" is 1918 for some women and 1928 for all adult women.

1918: the first women voters

The 1918 Act changed the rules for both men and women, but not equally.

• Men could vote from the age of 21, without any property qualification. Men who had turned 19 during wartime service could also vote.
• Women could vote only if they were over 30 and were registered occupiers of property with a rateable value above £5, or married to such an occupier. Women who were university graduates could also vote in the university constituencies.

The electorate grew from 7.7 million in 1912 to 21.4 million by the end of 1918. Roughly 8.4 million women gained the vote, though published estimates vary. Even so, women made up only about 40 per cent of the electorate, because the age and property tests still kept many women off the register.

The first general election under the new rules was held on 14 December 1918.

1928: equal votes for women and men

The Equal Franchise Act of 1928 removed the remaining differences. Women could now vote from 21, as men could, and no longer had to meet a property qualification. About five million more women were added to the electoral roll.

At the 1929 general election women made up 52.7 per cent of the electorate. It became known as the "Flapper Election".

The voting age for everyone was later lowered from 21 to 18 by the Representation of the People Act 1969, which received royal assent on 17 April 1969. The first general election held under it was on 18 June 1970.

The campaign for the vote

The demand for women's suffrage was decades old by 1918. The Great Reform Act of 1832 had referred to "male persons", making the exclusion of women explicit. Women gained some ground in local government first: the Municipal Franchise Act 1869 gave unmarried women ratepayers the vote in local elections.

Suffragists

"Suffragist" was the general term for anyone who campaigned for the vote. In 1897 Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), which campaigned by peaceful, constitutional methods.

Suffragettes

Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) at her home in Manchester on 10 October 1903, with the motto "Deeds, not words". The word "suffragette" was first used by a Daily Mail journalist in 1906. One historian has suggested it was meant to belittle the militants, but the WSPU adopted it with pride.

WSPU members heckled politicians, chained themselves to railings and smashed windows, and the campaign later extended to arson and bombing. Imprisoned suffragettes went on hunger strike to demand to be treated as political prisoners, beginning with Marion Wallace Dunlop in 1909, and the authorities responded with force-feeding. The Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill Health) Act 1913, known as the "Cat and Mouse Act", allowed hunger strikers to be released when ill and re-arrested once they had recovered. In June 1913 Emily Davison was fatally injured after running onto the course in front of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby.

When the First World War began in 1914, the WSPU stopped its suffrage campaign and supported the war effort, while the NUWSS continued its work.

The first women MPs

The right to stand for Parliament came separately. The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918, passed in November 1918, allowed women to be elected to the House of Commons, a month before the general election.

• Constance Markievicz was the first woman elected to the UK Parliament, in 1918. As a Sinn Féin member she followed her party's policy and did not take her seat.
• Nancy Astor was the first woman to take her seat. She won the Plymouth Sutton by-election on 28 November 1919 and took her seat on 1 December 1919.
• Margaret Bondfield became the first woman Cabinet minister in 1929.

Timeline of women's voting rights in the UK

Year	Change
1832	Great Reform Act limits the parliamentary vote to "male persons"
1869	Municipal Franchise Act: unmarried women ratepayers can vote in local elections
1897	National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies founded
1903	Women's Social and Political Union founded in Manchester
1913	"Cat and Mouse Act" passed
1918	Representation of the People Act: women over 30 meeting a property qualification can vote; women can stand for Parliament
1919	Nancy Astor becomes the first woman to take her seat in the Commons
1928	Equal Franchise Act: all women aged 21 and over can vote, on the same terms as men
1969	Voting age lowered to 18 for everyone

How the UK compares

The UK was neither first nor last. A few verified dates for women's voting rights in national elections:

• New Zealand, 1893: the first self-governing colony in the world where women could vote in parliamentary elections, though women could not stand for Parliament until 1919.
• Australia, 1902: women could vote in federal elections, but the law excluded Indigenous Australians.
• Finland, 1906: the first in Europe to let women both vote and stand for Parliament.
• United States, 1920: a constitutional amendment extended the vote to women in all remaining states.
• South Africa, 1930: the Women's Enfranchisement Act gave the vote to white women only.
• France, 1944, and Switzerland, 1971 at federal level.